The Peace Meal

Paul and I with the four young offenders who stoned our windscreen. Beside me on the right is Remy.

Next to Paul is Uboy, and the young man in the red shirt is Imay and on the end at the left of this picture is Uyù. Two of the fathers are behind them.

We left for their village last Saturday morning without apprehension but with a sense of anticipation wondering what God purposed to bring out of the day. We started out as just a few, Paul and I, Ben (Leonie was not feeling well) and a couple of men who are related to two of the young offenders. Just down the road a bit, we picked up two of the village officials and finally, by the time we arrived at our destination, we were jammed inside the vehicle like sardines with about 8 people sitting up on the roof-rack besides!

The first thing that happened was that as we were getting out of the vehicle, the fathers of two of the young men, met us and with tears and eventually even sobs, he grabbed onto Paul and kept hugging him and begging him to please forgive his sons, and he kept telling us over and over, very loudly, that he was so ashamed at what they had done to us that he could hardly show his face in the village anymore and that even all the officials were angry with him because he couldn’t control his sons. But he kept saying to Paul, “I never, ever taught them to do any harm to you or to anybody else. I don’t know what to do with my sons and I don’t know why they are doing these things......maybe this happened so that they could learn a lesson and so that you could come here to our house and teach them. Maybe you will bring deliverance to my family.......maybe that rock that they threw will turn out to be the thing that knocked on your heart and brought you here to our place......”

As he talked and cried he was taking us into his house and once we were all inside, he kept talking for quite some time, while in the mean time, different family members started serving coffee and I started slicing the three big chocolate cakes that we had brought as a special treat for the children, but which were equally enjoyed by all the adults! I cut 90 slices of cake and it was just the right amount to go around!!

The meeting was very serious, with the officials present who represented both their village and ours. The offenders had been sent to carry cool, clean water from a spring quite a long walk away, as their Dads did not want us to drink the common water that they used in their houses. As the officials prepared to get into the serious talking, the four offenders sheepishly approached the house with the water and the crowd of on-lookers cleared the way so they could come through. Their wives and children were also with them as we had specified during the inquiry the previous week, but the thing that really stirred my heart was the fear on the faces of their gorgeous little children and I wondered what they were thinking and feeling. No doubt they had heard all about their Dads’ sin and no doubt they had heard all of the villagers and neighbours and their grandparents yelling at their Dads and threatening that they would end up in prison and here they were, having to appear before these foreign, ‘scary’ people that their Dads had sinned against.

The cake and our smiles soon won them over and when the serious talking began, they all gathered in the room with their mothers and their dads and they began to feel quite relaxed and happy as they listened to Paul teach and as they listened to all that was said. I watched them and took some photos while it was all happening (as surreptitiously as I could) and I think these photos tell a world of stories in themselves. 

The black at the bottom left of this picture is me, and this little girl, leaning against my side, almost immediately lost her initial fear of us and she leaned on me, holding onto the edge of my jacket, during the whole proceedings.

This is one of my favourite pictures. Can you read the remorse in young Imay’s posture here as he holds his head in his hands while he listens to Paul teaching them from the Word? His attitude brought tears to my eyes.

Here are two more of the offenders, with their children gathered around them and their wives on either side as they focus intently on what Paul was saying. 

The peace meal! Amazingly to us, they knew exactly how we took our coffee and knew that we didn’t like our soup too salty and they’d prepared everything suited to our tastes. They had done some detective work!

The story of all the events of the day would take too long to tell.....but the outcome was that the four offenders, their families, their relatives and other people in their village want someone to go there each week to teach them the Word of God! This is the very best outcome!! These four young men told us that they have been discouraged in life and have had no direction, and that the poverty and frustrations of their lives have made them want to find something ‘easy’ like crime. But they promised to turn from this life and they all said they want salvation and they want to submit their lives to God. So we wait to see what God has for them and their families and for their village of Mauswagon in the days and weeks, months and years ahead. 

The four young offenders called themselves the ‘surrenderees’. Please pray that they will surrender their lives to the Lord Jesus! Their names from left to right are:  Remy (Buling), Uboy, Imay and Uyù. They are all married and all have children.

At present they are a gang of thieves and murderers, but in the future maybe they will be a group of God’s children, maybe evangelists and bible teachers..........

Please join in the fight for their souls by PRAYING!